Anthropology: the future of the A level. Laurie Taylor talks to Joy Hendry, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University, about the proposed cancellation of this course. At a time of global conflict, is it the right time to axe a discipline which allows insight into cultures and ideas very different from our own? Also, 'blame' in the criminal justice system. Tim Hillier, Associate Head of Leicester de Montfort Law School, De Montfort University, Leicester, explores the role an...
Jun 03, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Poverty in Britain: Laurie Taylor talks to Joanna Mack, Learning and Teaching producer at the Open University, about the largest ever survey of UK levels of economic and social deprivation. Her co-authored book, 'Breadline Britain..' claims that poverty is at an all time high. Also, claimants who reject work. Andrew Dunn, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at Lincoln University, has conducted research which suggests that some unemployed people turn down 'undesirable' work, thus choosing to remain ...
May 19, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The gym: Laurie Taylor explores the social history of the gymnasium with the writer and sociologist, Eric Chaline. Although this 'temple of perfection' appears primarily as a site for producing the 'body beautiful', this study finds it has also been a battleground in political, sexual and cultural wars. They're joined by Louise Mansfield, Sociologist of Sport at Brunel University Also, tattoos at work: Andrew Timming, Reader in Management at the University of St Andrews, talks about prejudices t...
May 11, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gentrification: its impact on working class residents. Laurie Taylor talks to Kirsteen Paton, lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, about her groundbreaking research in a neighbourhood undergoing urban renewal and improvement. Many such studies have focused on middle class lifestyles rather than the experience of less well off members of the community. Are working class residents inevitably displaced by gentrification and must traditional ways of life ...
May 05, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Post traumatic stress in male combat veterans: Laurie Taylor talks to Nick Caddick, Research Assistant at Loughborough University, and co-author of a study exploring the relationship between masculinity, militarism and mental health. Do conventional notions of male bravery and resilience impede soldiers' ability to access to support? They're joined by Anthony King, Professor in Sociology at the University of Exeter. Also, managing beds in the NHS. Pressure on beds is an acute challenge to the he...
Apr 29, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast This year, the BBC's Thinking Allowed, in association with the British Sociological Association, launched the second year of its award for a study that has made a significant contribution to ethnography, the in-depth analysis of the everyday life of a culture or sub-culture. Laurie Taylor presents a special edition of Thinking Allowed to mark the announcement of the winner of the 2015 award. Laurie and a team of leading academics - Professor Beverley Skeggs, Professor Adam Kuper, Dr Coretta Phil...
Apr 22, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Ethnography award 'short list': Thinking Allowed, in association with the British Sociological Association, presents a special programme devoted to the academic research which has been short listed for our second annual award for a study that has made a significant contribution to ethnography, the in-depth analysis of the everyday life of a culture or sub culture. Laurie Taylor is joined by three of the judges: Professor Beverley Skeggs, Professor Adam Kuper and Dr Coretta Phillips. Producer...
Apr 15, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Free will explored. Laurie Taylor talks to Julian Baggini, writer and Founding Editor of The Philosophers' Magazine, about his latest work which considers the concept of freedom. He argues against the idea that free will is an illusion due to a combination of genes, environment and personal history. Instead he posits a sliding scale of freedom which allows for the possibility of individual agency and responsibility. Also, pets as family: Nickie Charles, Professor and Director of the Centre for t...
Apr 08, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Making citizens: how countries make public rituals out of endowing new citizens with citizenship. Laurie Taylor talks to Bridget Byrne, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester, about her in-depth comparative study of citizenship ceremonies. In a mobile, transnational world passports and rights matter now more than ever. So how do states draw and establish the boundaries of citizenship? Using empirical research in the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands,...
Apr 01, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jeans on a journey: Laurie Taylor talks to Andrew Brooks, Lecturer in Development Geography at Kings College London, about his study of the hidden world of fast fashion and second hand clothes. Following a pair of jeans in an around-the-world tour, this research reveals the commodity chains which perpetuate poverty - from Mozambican markets to London's vintage clothing scene. Fur, family and inheritance. Siobhan Magee, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, discusses her re...
Mar 25, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Love, Money and HIV in Kenya. Laurie Taylor talks to Sanyu Mojola, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado, and author of a study exploring how modern women in developing countries experience sexuality and love. Drawing on a rich variety of interview, ethnographic and survey data from her native country of Kenya, she examines how young African women, who suffer disproportionate rates of HIV infection compared to young African men, navigate their relationships, schooling, e...
Mar 18, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast A lost avant garde: Laurie Taylor examines the tension between art & money in the contemporary art museum. He talks to Matti Bunzl, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, and author of a study which takes a rare look behind the scenes of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. He found that a commitment to new and difficult work came into conflict with an imperative for growth, leading to an excessive focus on the entertaining and profitable. Also, biologising parenthood: rec...
Mar 11, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Wombs for Sale: commercial surrogacy in India & beyond. Couples from all over the world can now hire Indian women to bear their children for a fraction of the cost of surrogacy elsewhere. Laurie Taylor talks to Amrita Pande, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Cape Town, and author of a detailed study into a burgeoning business which has little or no government regulation. She talked to surrogates, their families, clients, doctors and brokers to capture the full mechanics of a ...
Mar 04, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Migration: the complexities of transnational movement, identity and belonging. Laurie Taylor explores migration in contrasting contexts. He talks to Daniel Briggs, Professor of Criminology at the Universidad Europea, Madrid, about his study of Romanian economic migrants in Britain. Leaving behind the debt and corruption of their home in life in the hope of finding something better, what kinds of lives do they end up living in the UK? Also, Daniel Conway, Lecturer in Politics & International ...
Feb 25, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Conservatism: Roger Scruton, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, London, talks to Laurie Taylor, about the intellectual roots of Conservative values and ideology. Also, the emotional labour of care workers in a private residential care home. Eleanor Johnson, Researcher in Social Sciences at the University of Cardiff, talks about her case study of carer's practical and emotional work. Producer: Jayne Egerton.
Feb 18, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Harvard Business School: Laurie Taylor takes a journey through the complex moral world of what many call the West Point of American Capitalism. Michel Anteby, Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, describes his research into the inner workings, mores and rituals of this highly influential institution.They're joined by Professor Ken Starkey from the Nottingham University Business School. Also, a cultural history of pain with Dr Louise Hide, Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of ...
Feb 11, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Inside the Muslim Brotherhood - The first in-depth study of the relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its own members. Laurie talks to Hazem Kandil, Lecturer in Political Sociology at Cambridge University, about his intimate portrayal of the organisation's recruitment, socialisation and ideology. Privately educated girls - a 3 year study of 91 young women at 4 independent schools. Claire Maxwell, Reader in Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, finds that an eli...
Feb 04, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Migraine: a cultural history. How did a painful and disabling disorder come to be seen as a symptom of femininity? Laurie Taylor talks to Joanna Kempner, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, about her research into the gendered values which feed into our understanding of pain. Also, 'chavs' and 'pramfaces': Anoop Nayak, Professor in Social and Cultural Geography at Newcastle University, discusses a study into how marginalised young men and women resist the social stigma attach...
Jan 28, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dissident Irish Republicanism - Laurie Taylor talks to John Morrison, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of East London, about his in depth study into the recent intensification of rogue paramilitary activity, Can the upsurge in dissident Republican violence be explained by the history of splits within the Movement? He charts the rise of groups including the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and the newly emerging 'New IRA.' He's joined by Henry Mcdonald, Belfast correspondent at the Observ...
Jan 21, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Grading universities - The rights and wrongs of the Research Excellence Framework. The REF is the most recent in a series of national assessments of research in British universities. But how reliable and fair are these assessments? Do they give the taxpayer value for money, as is hoped by their advocates? And will they lead to the best and most innovative research in the future? Laurie Taylor asks the questions. He's joined by the former Minister for Higher Education and Conservative MP, David W...
Jan 14, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The militarisation of every day life. Joanna Bourke, Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, talks to Laurie about the multiple ways in which military violence and war play invade our current lives, pervading language and entertainment. Are we irrevocably 'wounding the world'? Also, Richard Ocejo, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York, takes us on a mystery ride with teenage New Yorkers, showing the diverse ways in which people experience being stran...
Jan 07, 2015•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Self-help & self-improvement. As thoughts turn to resolutions and making a fresh start in 2015, Laurie Taylor wonders if his scepticism about self-help books and self-improvement programmes is well founded. He goes for advice to Christine Whelan - Professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin and a self-help author. Further enlightenment is provided by Meg John Barker - Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Open University - who has studied self-help literature deali...
Dec 31, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Customs at Christmas and beyond. It may be best not to invite a sociologist for Xmas - they're liable to spend their time chronicling, even questioning your seasonal rituals. In this festive programme, Laurie Taylor looks at the ever shifting nature of our habits, practices and customs; changes in our lives which have been detected and discussed in previous editions of Thinking Allowed. Is our concept of romantic love as timeless as we often presume? How did bathrooms evolve from luxurious Victo...
Dec 25, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fat gay men: Laurie Taylor examines a world in which men are doubly stigmatised - for their weight as well as their sexuality. Jason Whitesel, an Assistant Professor in Women's and Gender Studies at Pace University in the US, discusses a study which illuminates how such men negotiate and fight back against a gay culture which places them in an inferior and stigmatised position in the 'attractiveness' hierarchy.They're joined by Paul Simpson, a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Mancheste...
Dec 17, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Global payday loans: Laurie Taylor talks to Carl Packman, a researcher and writer, who has analysed the growth of a worldwide industry. Today there are more payday lender shops in the US than McDonald's restaurants. They cater mainly to those without access to mainstream credit and with no other option. But how did they evolve and proliferate? And what is their impact on the most financially vulnerable consumers? He's joined by Johnna Montogomery, an economist from Goldsmiths, London. Also, redu...
Dec 10, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Port cities in the global age; from Marseilles to Liverpool and New Orleans. Laurie Taylor talks to Alice Mah, a sociologist at the University of Warwick, about her study of transformation along city waterfronts. What happens when world harbours are relegated to minor seaports? Can they ever return to their former greatness? Also, middle class alcohol use often exceeds safe levels but little research explains why. Lyn Brierley-Jones, a Research Fellow at the University of Sunderland, explores th...
Dec 03, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Creative Britain: Laurie Taylor explores its rise and fall with the British historian, Robert Hewison, who provides an assessment of the cultural policies of New Labour and the Coalition. Why has culture failed to escape class? Also, a new Sexology exhibition prompts an analysis of the changing field of sex research. Kaye Wellings, Professor of Sexual & Reproductive Health Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, charts a history involving book burning, scandal and sha...
Nov 26, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Shoes - a journey through our lives and identities. From 'brothel creepers' to perilous stilettos, our choice of footwear changes and evolves over a life time. Laurie Taylor talks to Victoria Robinson, Reader in Sociology at the University of Sheffield, about the ways in which shoes can, variously, plunge us back into the past or inform the present. Whether worn for comfort or glamour, they are powerful indicators of taste and identity. Also, Maruta Herding, a sociologist at the German Youth Ins...
Nov 19, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Meritocracy, then and now. Laurie Taylor talks to Peter Hennessy, Attlee professor of contemporary British history at Queen Mary, University of London. How did meritocracy arise as a concept and has it ever been realised in practice given the persistence of notions of a British Establishment with control over access to the centres of power? They are joined by Danny Dorling, professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. Also, doctors' choice of desert island discs - what do they tell us abo...
Nov 12, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fugitives from the law: Laurie Taylor talks to Alice Goffman, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about 'On the Run' her study of the lives of African American men caught up in webs of criminality in Philadelphia. She spent six years living in a neighbourhood marked by pervasive policing, violence and poverty. She argues that high tech surveillance and arrest quotas have done little to reduce crime or support young lives in the most disadvantaged parts of the...
Nov 05, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
